1974

The year 1974 is the hinge on which Mariam's life swings from the isolated world of the kolba into a marriage that will define her for decades. At fifteen, she makes a bid for the father she worships, only to be rejected, and the consequences—her mother's suicide and her own hasty wedding to a much older shoemaker from Kabul—forever alter the course of her existence.

Mariam's Fifteenth Year and the Rupture with Jalil

In the spring of 1974, Mariam, now fifteen, tells Jalil that for her birthday she wants him to take her to his cinema in Herat to see a cartoon about a puppet boy. She also wants to meet her half-siblings. Jalil initially demurs, citing poor picture quality and a malfunctioning projector, but Mariam presses him at the stream the next day. He reluctantly agrees to meet her at noon the following day. When Mariam arrives at the appointed spot, Jalil does not come. She waits, then decides to walk to Herat alone—the first time she has ever left the clearing. In the city, she finds Jalil's house, but his driver tells her he is away on urgent business, even though his car is parked outside. She spends the night on the street, and in the morning, when she bursts through the gates, she sees Jalil's face in an upstairs window for an instant before the curtains are pulled shut. The driver carries her back to the car, and on the ride home, Mariam weeps with grief, anger, disillusionment, and deep shame at her own foolishness.

Nana's Suicide and Its Aftermath

When the driver brings Mariam back to the kolba, he tries to shield her eyes, but she sees Nana dangling from a rope beneath the weeping willow tree. Nana has hanged herself. At the funeral, Mariam stands with Bibi jo among the women as Mullah Faizullah recites prayers. Jalil makes a show of tending to her, but when Mariam cries for the first time that day, it is only when Mullah Faizullah appears in the doorway. He tries to comfort her with words from the Koran, but Mariam cannot hear comfort; all she can hear is Nana saying, "I'll die if you go." She is taken to Jalil's house, where she stays in a guest room, eating little and watching the comings and goings of his household from the window. She realizes that Nana was right: she does not belong there.

The Forced Marriage to Rasheed

A week after Nana's death, Jalil's wives summon Mariam downstairs and tell her she has a suitor: Rasheed, a Pashtun shoemaker from Kandahar who lives in Kabul. He is about forty to forty-five, a widower whose wife died in childbirth and whose son drowned three years earlier. Mariam protests, saying she wants to live with Mullah Faizullah, but the wives insist she cannot stay. Jalil, when pressed, says only, "Goddamn it, Mariam, don't do this to me," as though he is the victim. The nikka takes place the next morning. Mariam signs the marriage contract, and she and Rasheed exchange thin gold bands. That afternoon, she boards a bus for Kabul. At the bus station, she tells Jalil she used to worship him, that she prayed he would live to be a hundred, and that she now knows he was ashamed of her. She refuses to let him visit or write. "It ends here for you and me," she says. Rasheed puts his thick hand on hers and says, "There now, girl."

Arrival in Kabul and the Beginning of Married Life

Mariam arrives at Rasheed's house in Deh-Mazang late the following evening. The house is small but a mansion compared to the kolba. Rasheed shows her around, points out the mountains visible from the window, and tells her he cannot stand the sound of a woman crying. He gives her a room of her own, saying he is accustomed to sleeping alone, and has placed a basket of white tuberoses on the windowsill. Mariam feels adrift and forlorn, missing Nana, Mullah Faizullah, and her old life. In the first days, she hardly leaves her room. Rasheed visits her doorway each night, smoking and telling her about his day, but she waits anxiously for him to leave. When he finally insists she start behaving like a wife, she unpacks her clothes, cleans the house, and begins to cook. She makes daal for him, and he pronounces it good, which gives her a small thrill of pride. But when he gives her a sky blue burqa and tells her that a woman's face is her husband's business only, she feels a sensation of shrinking before his will.

The First Pregnancy and Miscarriage

Later that year, Mariam becomes pregnant. Rasheed is overjoyed, certain the baby is a boy, and begins building a crib. He buys a suede winter coat for the baby. Mariam, too, is happy; she feels that all the loss and grief of her life has washed away, and that God has brought her to Kabul for this purpose. But when she goes to the women's bathhouse, she begins to bleed and miscarries. The grief is crushing. She buries the suede coat in the yard, reciting prayers. Rasheed grows remote and resentful, and over the next four years, Mariam suffers six more miscarriages. Each loss makes him more distant and cruel. He begins to find fault with her cooking, to complain about the house, and to beat her. Mariam lives in fear of his shifting moods. One night, when the rice is not to his liking, he forces pebbles into her mouth and makes her chew them, breaking two of her molars. By the end of 1974, the brief period of hope and tenderness has been replaced by a pattern of violence and submission that will define the rest of her marriage.